


letting (you) go

by tagchansol



Series: red strings [2]
Category: Thai Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Red String of Fate, just a tiny bit, slight angst, there's a surprise in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28402824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tagchansol/pseuds/tagchansol
Summary: Tay thinks about it and realizes three things at once: one, he loves New above anything or anyone else (Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Nana); two, he’ll do anything to keep New happy; and three, he means anything—even when that means letting him go.Or, the second part to Ikaw ang Hantungan where New's past catches up to Tay's present.
Relationships: New Thitipoom Techaapaikhun/Tay Tawan Vihokratana, Off Jumpol Adulkittiporn/Gun Atthaphan Phunsawat
Series: red strings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080197
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	letting (you) go

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @singthirsttps for Suhay sa Buhay's Sulatroniko Project. Proceeds from this project are donated to affected communities of Typhoon Ulysses in Isabela, Philippines.
> 
> Story based on Moira dela Torre's Paubaya because apparently my friends like pain? Anyway, I decided to write this as a sequel to Ikaw ang Hantungan to maximize the soulmate premise. Hope you like it!

“I guess what you should be learning from my own experience is that being soulmates isn’t an assurance that you two will stay together forever,” Jamie tells Tay and New casually, like she hasn’t been narrating for the past two hours how her relationship with her soulmate has shot to shit even after their instant connection. “You need to remember every single day that you are going to drift apart eventually, and it’s on both of you to keep choosing each other even when that happens— _especially_ when that happens.”

Tay looks at New, who is comfortably leaning on Tay’s left shoulder and very obviously stifling a yawn. He gently tugs at his hair and gives him a nasty look. New hasn’t really warmed up to Jamie even after Tay explained that she’s just like a younger sister to him.

“Maybe I’ll think about choosing New everyday,” Tay faux muses.

New scoffs at him before digging his head deeper into Tay’s shoulder. “Like I’ll ever let you get rid of me.”

Tay hides a smile in New’s hair.

Everything has been going well since the day New admitted that he could also see the red string tied on his and Tay’s fingers. Well, it’s not going _as well_ as Tay would have liked, with official labels still not on the table because they’re taking it slow, apparently; at least New isn’t kissing one person after another just to prove that they don’t have a connection, though.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go out with us?” asks New. It’s only the sixth time he’s asked it in the last ten minutes. “You’re really leaving me to third-wheel with Off and Gun the whole night?”

Tay smiles, only a little apologetically. “I need to finish editing the pictures I’m showcasing for the term exhibit. My adviser wants to see my selections before I send it for printing.” He doesn’t suggest that New could stay with him instead, watch a movie in the couch while Tay sits beside him and work on his laptop, but he’s thinking it.

New groans, even as he finishes putting his printed socks on. “I hate going out without you.” He plops on Tay’s bed.

 _Stay, just stay here with me_. “I promise to go out with you guys after the exhibit. We can also try that one dessert buffet near the National Stadium Station. You’ve been wanting to go.”

Another prolonged groan, New’s face turned to Tay. “Promise?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a pout pulling on his face, but New still presses a lingering kiss on Tay’s lips before grabbing his bag and leaving Tay in a confusing flurry of yearning and contentment.

“Papi, come do this pose with me!”

Shaking his head, Tay looks at the time on his laptop and notes that New is running late again. It’s lunch time, he can feel the glare of the sun scorching the back of his neck, and he has this frankly nauseatingly adorably expressive boyfriends (maybe) flirting right in front of him without his soulmate.

“Baby, we’ve done all the poses you’ve seen on TikTok,” Off complains. “I haven’t even touched my food yet.”

In response, Gun looks at the plate of omelette and rice thoughtfully, before picking up the spoon and presenting a rice full of it in front of Off’s face. “I’ll feed you, how about that?” he says, sweetly and devotedly.

“Do you know where New is supposed to be at this hour? His class should have been done 20 minutes ago,” Tay asks his two friends.

His two friends who seem to completely ignore his question. Their gazes are locked on each other, giggling a little bit as they make a game out of feeding each other in turns.

The first time Tay met Off during Orientation Week, he already had the impression that he wasn’t the type of guy who doled out his affection in huge doses and in such public settings. He was right, in most cases, but then New introduced this bundle of energy into their small group and changed everything with no warning, no alarm and with absolutely no apologies.

Off and Gun don’t have the red string, nor do they see it tied with anyone else. They don’t see the necessity of labels, because apparently when you feel the way they do about each other, flimsy things such as labels are irrelevant and hold no weight in the grand scheme of things.

“Wait,” Gun says all of a sudden, spoon halfway towards Off’s mouth. “Did you not know where New is?”

“Um.”

“He’s meeting an old friend! I thought he would have told you!”

“Old friend?” Tay tilts his head, curious. New is friendly, he could be meeting with about a hundred different old friends and Tay won’t be able to guess which one.

Tay sees Off’s face before it happened. “Oh, hi New!” he says, casual and not at all aware of how much this moment is going to change Tay’s future.

Unsuspecting, he turns. And there, that’s New. That’s his soulmate.

And next to him, Singto. Tay feels cold all over. That’s New’s longest boyfriend. The one he dated for two years in high school, who he only broke up with because he had to move to the US to study, but is now back, apparently.

Singto Prachaya is one of the nicest people Tay has ever met. He can also single-handedly ruin Tay’s life without lifting a finger if he feels to do so.

“Hi,” greets Tay’s worst nightmare personified.

New smiles, and Tay feels the beginning of the end.

The thing is, Tay can’t stop thinking about it.

The glaces, the hand holding, the hugs. The kisses, and the implicit knowledge that before New ever let Tay hold any claim over him, Singto already surpassed every intimate moment with New that he could share with anybody else.

“Tay, oi!”

Tay starts, blinking once, twice, before finally settling his gaze on New, lounged in his bed wearing his favorite sleepshirt in Tay’s wardrobe. “What?”

New gives him a confused look. “I’ve been talking to myself this whole time?”

“Sorry, just a little distracted,” shrugs Tay. “What was it?”

There’s still a lingering line between New’s eyebrows, but he shrugs it off and asks, “Singto’s asking where you buy your films. He said he wanted to take more film photos but his old shop closed while he’s in the US, so I told him I’d ask you.”

It’s then that he notices New’s phone, glued to his hand all evening since they got home from university, through dinner and through the entire time they’re watching a documentary about global warming that Tay insisted they watch for Friday movie night. New _always_ pays attention to him when they’re watching furing Friday movie nights, even when he was dating random people.

Tay feels the weight in his stomach sink further and further, realizing belatedly that the last time New was this distracted around him, he was dating Singto.

Since the moment he first notices it, Tay can’t stop seeing the past in his present. New being glued to his phone even when they’re together. New skipping lunch with the three of them because he’s off with Singto, catching him up with everything he missed in Bangkok while he was gone. New leaning onto Singto’s phone to peer into the screen, _leaning onto Singto’s space while they laugh_ , _leaning into Singto’s space to share a kiss_ —

 _No_ , he stops himself. _That was the past_ , he reminds himself. New is here, by his side.

He can’t shake the feeling of its brittle impermanence, because while New is sitting here by his side right now, Singto used to be in this position as well. Whatever he lost, he could easily take back for himself.

Tay tries to not let it get to him. The end of the term is looming near, the dread in preparing for the exhibit counting for half their grade in a major course impending with it. Now is the worst time to get distracted.

“Will you ever tell us why you’ve been so distracted lately?” Tay almost trips on a hump.

“I’m not distracted,” he counters Off. They’re on the way to the workshop to drop off Tay’s photos for the exhibition. He’s very focused.

The way Off’s face contorts gives Tay the impression that he’s not falling for it.

“You’re always quiet these days? _Specifically_ , around New.”

“I’m just worried about the exhibit,” he murmurs, eyes on his feet. And since Off seems to be in an interrogative mood, and Tay is slowly falling apart on his own, he decides to ask: “Off, what if your soulmate comes along someday? Or Gun’s? What will you do?”

“Huh.” Off slips a hand in his pocket, chin tilted upwards. “We never really talked about it with you guys, but Gun actually found his soulmate a few months after we talked about our feelings for each other.”

“ _What?_ ” A few months after they talked about their feelings for each other means _more than a year ago_.

“Yeah, that’s why we never put a label on whatever we have.” Off shrugs, casually, _what the heck_. “I don’t want to put Gun in a position where he’d feel like he’s trapped in a relationship with me.”

Tay gapes at his friend.

Off just looks at him and chuckles. “Wild, right? It’s just. Whatever Gun feels for me right now, I don’t want him to think I’m taking that for granted and thinking it’s gonna be forever. I want him to know that he has the option to be with his soulmate if one day he wakes up and realizes that he loves him, without feeling indebted or tied down with me. At the end of the day, I’m willing to give him anything he could ever want. Even if that means I have to let him go someday.”

Tay thinks about it and realizes three things at once: one, he loves New above anything or anyone else ( _Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Nana_ ); two, he’ll do anything to keep New happy; and three, he means _anything_ —even when that means letting him go.

It starts with a phone call. Tay is watching the news in his apartment, sitting alone on his couch with a dent on the other end because it’s used to being occupied.

His phone rings, flashing New’s face on the screen, and rings and rings and stops.

Tay goes to the kitchen, gulps a glass of water, goes back to the couch.

He tries not to look as his phone rings again, and again. Until it stops.

It doesn’t ring again for the rest of the night.

There’s still a lot to be done in the gallery for the exhibit, his designated space still bare of photos, floor scattered with newspapers for protection before he paints the walls. Off and Gun still have class, so they can’t go as early as he would have preferred. He definitely needs help, but he’ll have to do it alone.

“Huh, this is a lot of space to occupy,” New says and _okay_ , he is not supposed to be here.

“What are you doing here?” Tay doesn’t intend to snap, but it comes out like that anyway.

Before New can reply, Singto with his perfect hair and perfect smile and perfect face comes stumbling through the door, holding a bag of drinks in one hand and a box of pizza in the other.

“Well, don’t be too happy we’re here, Tay,” New tells him flippantly, already used to his attitude when he’s stressed and working under time pressure. “You need help with setting up, right? Singto is good with painting walls, you can let him do that part so you can focus on visualizing where your pieces go.”

Tay is going to object, he really is, but then again he sees the frankly sad state of his space, and lets New and Singto stay.

Tay knew he was going to regret letting New and Singto stay and help, but he didn’t expect just how much it would hurt.

He’s walking all over the place, trying to decide where to put his pieces, while Singto paints the walls, New eating pizza in the middle of the room, sitting on a piece of newspaper. They don’t get physically close, but once in a while New picks up Singto’s phone and slides it open, passcode and all, yelling for Singto to come and look at the new message or some other shit that only two of them can understand.

When it is time to go, Tay lingers where the newspapers are, taking his time folding them. He wants to be left alone, but New seems more determined to wait his mood out until he speaks to them.

He feels the familiar warmth of New’s hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go, we can clean up tomorrow morning. Singto and I are going to this café—”

“I have to do this now so I won’t have to do it tomorrow. The exhibit starts at 3.”

“Plenty of time between now and 3 PM tomorrow.”

The hand is still there, Tay shrugs it away as he stands up.

“You already made plans anyway, I’m sure my presence is not needed.”

When Tay raises his head, he sees New’s eyes glued to him, appraising. His lips are red and moist and pursed in contemplation.

He nods once, and leaves.

Tay aces the exhibit, so to speak. The response is better than he could have wished for. His professors praising his photographs and his peers asking him for pointers. New staying by his side through the night, completely ignoring the fact that Tay is snappy and tense. Jamie drops by in his space and drags them to hers for a second, showing them the picture of him and New taken from the back, just their silhouettes showing how close they are. It’s almost stripped away of saturation, except the sky above them looks a hazy combination of pink and purple, and in the long line of the horizon, red.

For a second, he gets the urge to forget about everything and just be selfish. Why is he pulling away from the love of his life, anyway? Why, when even New doesn’t look like he intends to leave him alone when he so obviously wants to put some distance between them? Tay knows that New has noticed him pulling away, but New is still here, waiting it out and being so patient and—

New’s phone rings, Tay sees Singto’s face on the screen.

When New turns his back on Tay to pick up the call, Tay remembers why he has to do this in the first place.

The next day, in broad daylight, in the gallery where Tay’s pride and hard work are posted, he tries to tell New that he’s done with it.

He didn’t want to do it here, of all places, but New is here, and almost nobody else is. He doesn’t want to last another day feeling like he’s not enough and forcing his claim on another person just because they were meant to be. If New isn’t happy with him, he’ll be the last person on earth to ask him to stay.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Tay?!” New sounds angry, but Tay can’t care about that right now.

“I’m saying we might be soulmates but it doesn’t matter if you make a different choice! If you choose to go back to your ex then I won’t let the red string stop you!” He tries to keep his voice down, but he’s shaking, his voice is shaking, and his volume raises a little bit. “I won’t ever get in the way of your happiness, do you get that?”

“What in the fuck, Tay?” New looks truly angry now. His face is red, his lips curled in a snarl. “I fucking love you! I will literally choose nobody else over you! The red string might have led us to each other but that’s not why I love you! _Okay_? What the hell.”

“That’s not.” Tay stops, heaves a breath. “You never told me you love me.”

“Well, I was afraid and stupid. And frankly that’s a dangerous combination. I’m happy with you. I don’t know if we’re made for each other, but we fit, okay? What you are and what I am make us good together. I want literally nobody else now that I accepted everything. The red string might be there to lead us to each other but I don’t love you because of it. I love you because you’re you. Do you get that? You’re the sun, you have no right to be insecure about anyone ever again.”

Tay opens his mouth, closes it again. He… absolutely has no idea how to respond to this. He didn’t prepare himself for this moment because in his haze of jealousy and gloom and self-deprivation, he forgot to consider that New might seriously love him back.

“I bet you feel stupid right now,” New accuses smugly. “Seriously, Tay? Letting me go? You really thought we can manage to be apart? You forgot that I tried to do that since the moment we met and I _cracked_? It was never going to work.”

“Why are you so smug?” he demands, because honestly what else can he say? _Why is he in love with an idiot?_ New can ask the same.

So when New holds the sides of his neck and gives him a soft Eskimo kiss, he lets him. And when New looks at him in a mix of teasing and affection, Tay holds his gaze.

“New, look who’s with— Uh.”

Tay slaps New in the face. Accidentally, _good God_ , why are people springing up out of nowhere. New is looking at him in pure disbelief.

“Tawan!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Is this a bad time?”

Tay and New simultaneously turn to the speaker, who turns out to be Singto. Standing beside a new face. “Oh, great! You’re here!”

“It is?” Singto asks.

New tilts his head to indicate Singto and his company, looking at Tay exasperatedly. “I’ve been spending time with Singto this whole time because I’ve been helping him surprise his long-distance boyfriend. Krist.”

 _Boyfriend?_ Tay’s eyes widen, realizing the situation slowly as New continues to explain. “He went back home for Krist, because he wants to propose and get married after university, but apparently every single shop and restaurant he needs have either moved or closed, so I’ve been helping him with the arrangements.”

Tay still can’t open his mouth. No thoughts.

“He called me last night because he wanted to thank me for all my mighty help.”

Tay turns to Singto and his fiancé, to confirm the story? To simply bask in the face of his wrong assumptions and idiocy? Who knows.

Singto gives him a very on-brand bright smile. Krist gives him a shrug and a look that says he has no idea whose couple’s quarrel they’re barging in.

“So,” Krist begins, looking around them before settling on Singto, “who’s that photographer we’re requesting for the prenups?”


End file.
